


The Melody of Silence

by Des98



Series: Less Heard, More Felt [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Past mention of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 10:11:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11644380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Des98/pseuds/Des98
Summary: Hey, so I'm still working on my other fic, but this is just something that's been rattling around and demanded to be written at three am.





	The Melody of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so I'm still working on my other fic, but this is just something that's been rattling around and demanded to be written at three am.

Harry Potter had a terrible childhood. The scars littering his back, chest, and legs from his uncle’s belt bore witness to this. But the worst thing they'd done to him, at least in his opinion, was not taking him to the doctor when he'd had a terrible ear infection. Of course this wasn't anything new, and Harry normally managed to recover on his own through sheer force of will and what he'd later discovered was his magic, but this particular ear infection progressed to such a state that all that even his considerable magical power managed to do was keep him alive. His hearing was caught in the crossfire, and Harry had to learn to survive in a world of silence.

Of course, when the wizarding community discovered that their precious boy-who-lived was deaf, a trip to Pomphrey in the hospital wing was inevitable. While nothing could be done to fix his hearing six years after the fact, it did lead to the discovery of his relatives heinous abuse, a fact that initially mortified Harry but eventually worked in his favour as he was removed from the Dursley's care. He lived with the Weasley’s for the first two summers until it was discovered that Sirius Black was, in fact, innocent. Harry had used his disability to his advantage as he repeatedly asked Minister Fudge to annunciate more so he could read his lips as the man fumbled over his explanations about why Lord Black could not possibly be innocent. This distraction allowed Professor Dumbledore to slip Sirius a dose of Vitasirum, and in the questioning that followed not even the incompetent fool that was Fudge could deny the man a proper trial, which ultimately led to Harry's living with Sirius and his werewolf boyfriend. While Harry and Snape were not overtly fond of each other, the boy did have to admit the man was right when he remarked that his godfathers “bickered like an old married couple,” and he couldn't even hear!

His nonverbal spells had also been perfect from the get-go, unsurprising really. And it had become something of a Gryffindor tradition to beseech the Potter-Black heir to dish out all the gossip that he'd managed to collect from lip reading the staff conversations that occurred out of earshot of the students. Umbridge’s cat fetish had become something of a legend with all the houses (he totally made it up, but one thing people never questioned his telling the truth about was anything he said about staff conversations taking place quietly at the head table).

 

For all the good his hearing loss may have indirectly done him, it had robbed him of the first thing he could ever remember having given him joy. He missed music, missed it with a passion that thrummed through his body and plucked at his heartstrings like an out-of-tune guitar. When Dudley had taken to his short-lived goal of learning piano, the Dursley parents had bought him all the books in the music shop, from beginning three-note melodies near middle C to classical symphonies that took years to garner the skill to learn. They'd even bought a grand piano for the parlour, so convinced were they of their precious Dudder’s musical virtuosity. When the spoiled boy inevitably quit after only two lessons, it became Harry’s lifeline. He would pick the lock to his cupboard whenever the Dursley’s left for a “family” outing, reading all the books and learning all the songs. He'd sing to the radio and string the keys together as easily as breathing, and it sustained him through long, hungry days and nights of pain and suffering. By the time he was five-and-a-half and lost his hearing, he could play better than most adults after years of lessons, and had anyone been there to listen, they would have said he was a prodigy. 

After he'd gone deaf, the comfort music provided was limited only to those songs he knew by heart, precious few when one was five and their memory was still developing. He could still play any piece of music put in front of him with the timing and skill of a professional, but it felt impersonal to him now, like putting together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that he didn't particularly care about finishing. But he clung to what he could remember. He knew exactly how the chords and notes should fall for his old favourites like “Penny Lane” and “Tiny Dancer,” could feel the vibrations in his vocal chords and almost feel the familiar tunes wrapping him in their warmth. When he'd long since forgotten what his own voice sounded like, the feeling of singing his old dearly beloved classics was almost able to give something back to him. 

He had a small muggle tattoo in the shape of a ballerina on his right ankle and a two-pence piece on his wrist as a tribute to the two songs he remembered best, the two songs that let him sink into the bliss of forgetful piece. He knew the dancer especially wasn't very “manly,” but he didn't care. He never let anyone see it anyway- no one knew he could sing or play. Not even Ron or Hermione. It was his private say of remembering when things were simpler. Even though his life had been miserable, he'd at least had the privilege of comparative anonymity, and black and white keys on a conjured piano in a private alcove in a dusty hallway where his rich tenor voice could bounce off the stone walls of the castle without risk of being heard by those who had the gift of working ears were his sanctuary. 

It was during his eight year after defeating Voldemort that this Sanctuary became even more important than ever before as people practically seemed to worship him as a god, wanting to know more and more about him in interviews and intercepting him at every corner to ask for an autograph or offer him gifts and adulations. No one ever came here, and he used his invisibility cloak, along with a strong disillusion spell to be extra careful, to ensure he was never followed. So it was with great surprise that he tapered off in the middle of the line “LA seamstress for the band,” (rendered better and more emotionally than even Elton John himself) to see the shocked face of Draco Malfoy in the corner of his peripheral vision. 

 

\---------------------

Draco Malfoy was having a tough time with his eighth year. If it wasn't enough that people still looked at him with distrust for a decision that had been made for him concerning an abhorrent servitude to an even more abhorrent man, Harry Potter had been the one to testify on his behalf, as he'd done for all the underage death eaters who'd been forced into taking the mark, which was really the vast majority of Hogwarts students who had it. This wasn't how Draco wanted Harry to notice him. He'd spent his early Hogwarts years trying to worm his way into Potter’s psyche, going so far as to sneak up on him and tap him on the shoulder when he was alone. Looking back, he felt bad about this, as he realised from his stint as an unwilling death eater that never knowing when the enemy could descend was quite nerve-wracking, and could only be more so when everyone and their minister was out to kill you and you didn't have full use of all your senses. But goddamit, Draco had never been able to resist the call of those piercing green eyes, softer and more understanding than should be possible considering everything their owner had been through, the messy hair that made him look like he'd just come out of a tornado even when he'd spent an hour trying to brush it, that caramel-coloured skin that looked as if it was kissed by the sun even in the middle of winter- he had known he was hopelessly in love with Potter since he was twelve years old, and had tried to gain his attention in the only way he knew how, a way that wouldn't make his father question where his loyalties truly lie. 

It was with these thoughts ruminating in his head that he wondered aimlessly around the castle during his free period, only realising that he was well and truly lost when there was nothing he could do to possibly find his way back into familiar territory. He had just passed the same painting of badgers having sex for the third time in a row when he hear it- a voice singing a song he didn't recognise. He realised it was a muggle song when he heard the voice singing about something called “headlights on the highway,” but damn, he didn't care. It was the most beautiful sound he'd ever had the pleasure to come across, and if muggles could make something like this, it only furthered his belief that everything his father every said to him was a lie. He followed the singing as it became clearer and louder, and all he could think was that if this was what sirens sounded like, he would happily spend everyday for the rest of eternity drowning in it, giving all of himself just to hear it for a little longer. He was shocked, therefore, when he came across the source of the voice- Harry Potter, pouring his heart and soul into a voice he couldn't hear and the fingers flying along the keyboard. But of course something this perfect could only belong to the object of his affection. It broke his heart that the other teen couldn't even hear the sound of his own perfection, and by the time Harry looked up at him, tears were streaming down the blonde’s face and he couldn't even bring himself to care about the fact that he was so vulnerable with the last person he wanted to be vulnerable with, the person who held his heart in both hands without even realising it. 

 

\-----------------------------

It was with no little shock that Harry looked up and a saw Draco Malfoy not only standing in his sacred space, but standing there in tears and looking as if he had simultaneously been lifted and crushed. Any anger he had over someone else intruding, especially this someone, vanished as something akin to concern flashed in his unique emerald orbs. 

“Malfoy? Are you alright?”  
The blonde quickly straightened and swiped embarrassedly at his face with his hand.  
“Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. I'm sorry- I didn't mean to intrude. I just got lost and accidentally ended up here, and I guess the music just made me a little emotional, is all. Please don't mention this to anyone else,” he added in a pleading tone.  
Harry nodded once in affirmation before cocking his head curiously to the side. “Do I really sound that good?” He asked the other boy.  
“Good?” Draco laughed incredulously. “You were amazing! Ethereal, really. I've never heard anything like it. It's enough to make me fall in love with you all over again.” He flinched as the darker boy bit back a gasp and he realised what he'd just admitted.  
“No, I mean- well, I didn't mean that. Well I suppose I did, but not like that. I mean, you don't have to do anything. Just forget it.” He cursed his discomfiture and turned to run away before he felt Harry grab his wrist. Before he'd known what was happening, he'd been pulled against the shorter teen’s body and into a kiss, the likes of which he'd never known before and couldn't have imagined happening to him even if he'd known it was possible that something could feel so perfect. 

Harry couldn't say what had come over him when he'd grabbed the flustered Malfoy and pulled him into a deep embrace, but he couldn't deny that it felt right as he licked the salty remnants of tears from the blonde’s soft lips. In fact, if he was honest with himself, he'd often dreamed of something like this happening. He wasn't one to question when good things happened to him, as he'd seen far too few of them to afford the luxury, so he simply allowed himself to smile as he pulled back, panting, from their very long and heated kiss. 

Draco, on the other hand, looked very confused in addition to his obvious exhilarated astonishment. “Wha-“ he started to say, but was cut off by a husky growl from Harry that sent shivers down his spine in the best way.  
“Shut up,” his hot breath panted in tantalising puffs along the blonde’s neck. “If I'm reading your lips, I'm not kissing them.”

The piano lay untouched in the corner for the rest of the afternoon as the two remained tangled up in each other, not sure what the future held but sure that it had bound them together in a way that couldn't be undone, not that either of them wanted it to be. Neither could deny that the way they fit together was a music of its own.


End file.
